phantasmagoria
by Ryfee
Summary: Every time she dreams, she dies a little. — Mami. One-shot.


**a/n: **who hates these new disturbing buttons on ffnet? I do.  
>Despite my hate for Moe, I love this anime so much. I can't help but write for the series.<br>Slight spoilers. Enjoy!

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><p><strong>phantasmagoria<strong>

_death is neither black nor red;  
>it is white.<em>

**i.**

Mami tends to forget her dreams. They usually come in a blur of vibrant colors swirling through her mind, multi-colored strings fluttering free every time she wakes up, detaching themselves from her. However, when she wakes up that day, a particular dream still lingers, its afterglow glistening bright in her head.

It was the first dream of her death.

In her dream, she was lying on top of a building, the smoke thick and spreading like miasma overhead. Her hands were clasped over her chest, and her lips pulled into a thin, purple line. She'd like to think it was a peaceful death, the kind that doesn't involve bloodshed, the kind that locks misery away, leaves no regrets behind.

As she approaches the sink and stares into the mirror – a pair of terrified eyes boring into her – incredulity begins to settle in her stomach, churning and prompting for answers.

There are other details as well; now she remembers. Like how the scarlet rivulets beneath her dead body intertwined and garnished the murky ground with morbid revelation, an ancient writing none could decipher but her.

Mami drops her toothbrush.

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><p><em>There was a girl crying for her, salty tears falling like rain and flashing like morning dews amidst fires and collapsing towers. There was also another girl; she smiled and embraced the ominous, formidable sky with unwavering will. She looked graceful and ethereal, angelic.<em>

_Not long after that, her figure tore the heavens apart with anguish, demise painting her wings black._

* * *

><p><strong>iii<strong>.

The moment Mami rises from her slumber, she directs her gaze at the innocuous ceiling, so hard that pain begins to puncture her eyes. Convinced that this is reality, she releases her breath and swings her feet over the bed. The bathroom catches her attention. Deciding that she needs more than a couple rubs of hand to completely wipe her stupor away, she starts toward it, each step sluggish.

On the way there, however, she staggers and loses her balances, knocking off a vase nearby. It tumbles onto the floor and breaks, its once beautiful flower patterns no longer distinguishable.

And suddenly, the fragments of her dream fall all over her like shards of glass, each piece fit perfectly with each other. A familiar picture replays on her mind, crystal clear and grandeur and blinking sporadic tints. The image is so meticulously detailed, so painstakingly vivid and bright and _alive_—

As though she had squeezed these hues out of their watercolor tubes and drenched the canvas—

(redblackredblackredred_red_black_blood_)

As though she had painted it herself.

In her painting— _dream_, she shot someone (she didn't know who – everything but her mattered not, and they were all black, colorless, insignificant). Something snapped then, and she thought she had been shot, too – though it wasn't her body. But she was certain it was part of her.

It shattered.

Mami tries to dismiss it all, tries to assume that the nightmare was nothing but mere fabrication formed out of her exhausted mind. She tries to pick up the splinters (pieces of theflowerdream_herself_), but they prick her skin – she recoils.

Ruby tears ooze over her hand and plummet against the floor, soundlessly.

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><p><em>She had done it because she didn't want to see more people – friends – becoming heartless monsters. She didn't want to witness any of them turning wicked and forgetting all those moments they'd shared together—<em>

_(their laughs_

_their bittersweet smiles_

_the light on their faces as they ate her homemade cakes and cookies_

_their heart-shaped bruises_

_their ambition_

_their promises_

_their wishes—)_

_She couldn't bear it. That's why she had shot the redhead. Because they were all better off dead._

_Not long after that, her own body lay motionless on the ground, following the former girl in a freefall of golden flash._

_Another girl (still alive, still hurting) cried while the other tried to console her with a hug, but it was empty and barely warmer than winter gusts that began to pick up._

* * *

><p><strong>v<strong>.

Sayaka's death has its oddities: she just stopped moving, her pale face torn apart by the smile that was the harbinger of her end; her soul gem lost its luster as the tips of her mouth dropped ever so slowly, her body following suit. She was gone then.

Despite the peculiarity of it all and the despair she left behind (not to mention a plethora of questions remaining unanswered), the death ignited something else in Mami's life.

Ever since Sayaka died, Mami has been having nightmares. And they are no ordinary nightmares. Vivid and ridiculously _real_ they are, often grotesque and incomprehensible. Her inability to decipher dreams never bothered her until now, at which point the nightmares are already gnawing at her sanity.

She might be an amateur as much as everyone else is when it comes to dealing with the supernatural, but at least she is certain of one thing: the nightmares have all been about her death.

It's the pain around her neck and the feeling of… hovering and never touching the ground that scare her the most. And how they're still present even after she wakes up, soaked in cold sweats with eyes shooting flints of crazed panic at her sheets. Sometimes she'll remember seeing colors in her dream, psychedelic flashes just before they vanish entirely, just before all goes black and the ground gives away.

And she thinks she's going crazy when days grow old and winter frosts begin to melt away to reveal vestiges of spring, and the nightmares give no sign of receding. Although Sayaka's death is many seasons behind her now, it still lingers heavily in the air, as stagnant and thick as the frosty atmosphere today.

Mami finally decides that she needs to make peace and deal with this tragedy once and for all (her own sanity at stake).

Which then explains the daisies in her embrace, tiny and fragile and rocking back and forth in the blonde's grasp as she trudges her way toward Sayaka's grave. The tombstone peeks over the rim of looming grass first, and then the small words imprinted on it get clearer and clearer as Mami draws closer.

Leaning over, she sets the flowers down and stares at the writing for a long time. For a while, she doesn't speak as though waiting for the stone to open the conversation, maybe lament its telltale song Mami knows all too well. Sighing, she shakes her head, lips parting.

"It's okay, Sayaka." She begins, "You can rest in peace,

(_Please please please stop haunting me and making me scared and see things I shouldn't see_)

"…It's okay now." She releases her breath, whispers to no one in particular, and the only answer she gets is another growl of wind, mocking and hostile as the sun dips lower into the horizon.

Pulling the jacket closer to her body, Mami makes her leave. This time, she doesn't look back. She will move on. She'll make sure that she wins her battles unscathed. She will be vigilant. She'll make sure that her friend's death wasn't for nothing. She'll rid this city of demons

(inner monsters).

Mami is strong. Mami will fight to the end.

_Always playing the hero, aren't you, honey?_

* * *

><p><em>Two girls – one had hair the color of plum, the other was sky blue – cowered as they watched that… <em>thing_ eating their friend_. _Red. There was red everywhere._

_The pink haired girl trembled, mouth opening and closing as if she was chanting a spell, eyes transfixed on the macabre sight before her._

_The blue haired girl stepped forward, though she, too, was shaking and scared. They didn't know what to do. And the only thing that could save them, keep them away from dying, was their wish – which result probably wouldn't be enough of a trade for what they had to go through afterward._

_But maybe because, deep down inside, they also knew that their very wish would unwind the same fate, same end—_

_Death._

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><p>A girl wakes up that day, and remembers nothing.<p>

What rivets her attention first is the white ceiling. And the rest – the walls, table, flower vase, curtain, sheets (all so stark, all so meaningless) – blends and drowns her in a flurry of dizzying similitude. She swallows the paleness of this room, everything and nothing, and rises from the bed she doesn't remember ever going to. Her feet touch the unblemished marble floor beneath and the cold immediately bites back at her, adverse.

There is a long silence afterward, in which she takes the time to glance around. The room is austere, barren of anything else save for a table and a simple flower vase that cradles void. No window, but there's a door, and the girl thinks it's better than nothing because

(this looks like a _cell_)

The stale air is suffocating her.

She doesn't like the emptiness of this room. The girl tries to remember something – anything that might give a clue as to why she's here – yet her effort is futile. Bleached like everything and nothing around her, her mind is a gaping maw which depth and end are unknown.

Inhaling and garnering every ounce of poise left inside her, she approaches the only exit, intent to find any sign or hint. The door swings on its hinge, crackling brittle bones.

Blink, blink, blink.

Lips apart, golden eyes transfixed on the quixotic view before her; the girl is awestruck. Contrasting what is inside, everything is bathed in colorful streaks that keep moving and swirling and twirling around in the air, exotic and exquisite.

The blonde haired girl takes a step forward, breath held, still stupefied.

Perhaps she can find some answers if she goes outside and follows these erratic lights. Maybe she'll remember something… find out who she truly is, where she is now, how she ended up here. Probably even an end to this magical realm – she could be dreaming, after all. (The thought is almost too comforting, a wistful thinking too grand and perhaps a little too true.)

Elucidation – no, colors, hues of many shades are better than the static white of that room anyway.

Deciding that she may not be lost after all, she smiles.

Almost.

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><p><em>Two girls. The dark haired one looked away, the redhead clenched her fists.<em>

_On the ground, someone with face so ashen and hair flaxen was lying motionlessly, lips inches apart as if they'd just unraveled a ghastly secret—_

_The cataclysm, unwound._

_The redhead shouted, desperate, terrified._

"_Answer me, Mami!"_

* * *

><p>The girl (who once was someone, had a name, friends, a purpose and life as incandescent as her fair hair) inhales again.<p>

Straightening, she steadies her pace and walks into the light. Nonexistent revelations arch above her like a rainbow, vivid tendrils knotting delicate patches over her hollow heart.

She feels warmer. She feels better. And so she marches onward without falter.

The girl, however, doesn't remember that every color and all colors are white.

**...**

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><p><strong>an**: This is my take on "different iterations" and how they affect others (especially the magical girls close to Homura and Madoka). Remember how Madoka "dreamed" of meeting Homura before the current timeline? I was trying to achieve that, because I think as friends, they'd be "bound" somehow - though for Mami in this case, it wasn't as strong as with Madoka (hence the vagueness).

I hope this isn't too confusing! Please tell me what you think; reviews are greatly appreciated!


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